>> Announcer: Live from Nashville, Tennessee. (light upbeat music) It's theCUBE. (light upbeat music) Covering Commvault GO 2018. (light upbeat music) Brought to you by Commvault. >> Welcome back to Nashville, Tennessee. This is Commvault GO, and you're watching theCUBE. I'm Stu Miniman. My cohost is Keith Townsend. And I am thrilled to welcome to the program, Al Bunte, who's the Chief Operating Officer at Commvault. Thanks so much for having us and pleasure to see ya. >> Thanks for having me. >> Hold on. In your keynote this morning, your CEO did a little bit of the talking. We made the joke that you might be the Teller to his Penn there. >> (laughing) >> So Keith and I will talk for a little bit, and then we'll let you get in. >> Fine. >> All right. >> I'm used to that. >> All right. So Al, we've really had a good day here. We've talked to some of your customers, talked to partners, talked to a lot of people here. The story that's coming across is Commvault's a company we know but maybe don't know the Commvault of today. So what's some of the messages you want customers to kind of come away with from the show, and then we'll get in from it from there. >> Yes, so we're focusing on trying to get the message across that we've simplified. We're in a complex world, as you guys well know. You have to do it through automation. Lots of it. Orchestration, et cetera. And we're trying to drive outcomes that are better for our IT customers out there. Almost that simple. >> Yeah, you use the word simple. Actually I liked in the keynote there was a little back and forth you had. Cloud was supposed to be simple and cheap. And when people actually got in and did it, they found out that it really was neither. >> Al: Correct. >> The word that was used in the keynote was, well you want to be smart and that might lead to things that are simpler and everything. Bring us inside a little bit to what Commvault is doing that is smarter to lead to easier, simpler down the road. >> And or better outcomes. >> Stu: Sure. >> I agree. So yeah, again as you guys know, as new technologies and or infrastructures come out like cloud, their initial use case is we're just a parking lot for data. So just write it up there and whatever works. Well it turns out that's simple, but now if you really want to use that data and those capabilities up in the cloud for cooler use cases, now you should be doing it smarter. So we talked, guys, about automation again. We talked about how you even write that data initially. Write it natively, so there isn't a conversion back and forth. That's a lot of latency. And then throughout everything we're talking about, we're adding a lot of machine learning, analytic capabilities, maybe overusing the word AI but you know leading down that path, and it makes a big difference. Cause these are big complex operations. >> So let's talk about this simple and smarter lesson. We've obviously seen a lot of change come out of Commvault. I went to Commvault GO last year. Just between this year and last year, you guys have made strides. Licensing model completely changed. As you talk to customers who are dealing with these complexities as a result of cloud and they look at simplified licensing, what have been some of the lessons learned over the past twenty years that have made you guys comfortable making which I have to say is a pretty bold decision in licensing? What has enabled that decision? >> It's a good question, Keith. I think it gets at that's what they want (laughing). >> (laughing) >> It's about that simple. >> Seems simple enough. >> Yeah we went off and talked to not just enterprise customers but midmarket customers. Remember, we're doing a lot of our activity through partners, so you have a third party. You don't want to get too confusing there. So we pushed hard on that idea, both in quoting, selling, and applying, and we just worked it a lot with our customer base and determined simplicity, by the way, is the number one criteria these days. It trumps cost, it trumps risk reduction, it trumps capabilities. People want it's got to be simple. Or I prefer simplified. Not simple dumb, simple smart. >> All right so Al, Commvault has quite a few employees. >> Yes. >> You've got quite a lot of customers. >> Al: Yes. >> You've got some very well-funded startups in this space. How does a Commvault compete? As the COO, how do you put the organizational structure in place, and how do you enable the company to be able to compete against some of these well-funded new players? >> Yeah so that's always a challenge, it really is. So I think personally, I have to have philosophies like, you have to change as a company. No resting on your laurels. You guys know that in tech industry, you can't rest on your laurels. Number one. Number two, we used to have to compete and change just a little faster than our competition. Now you have to change faster than startups. So everything we do, we're trying to drive change, we're trying to drive responsiveness, we've moved to rapid dev models. Again, I know you guys are well versed on it. We want to be able to respond to the market back to pricing, licensing, messaging, extremely fast. Back to the way Bob and I started the business, is we always, always, always believed you have to have the best technology. You can't go to sleep on that. You can't go on autopilot. And in our space you have to have the best support. So don't try to finesse those things. There may be other things to finesse, but just go all out and really drive the technology, the support, and then where you guys are going now get your act together on marketing, packaging, pricing, messaging, positioning, all those things. And that's where we're really bringing our game up. >> Well on that competition front, you guys have a, I don't know if it's an advantage, disadvantage, you can tell me, against your competitors. You have up to 100,000 customers who have used this product or a variation of this product for 20 years. So disruption may not be the word they're looking to hear. Some of these customers may be wanting to hear steady, reliable solution that I've used over the years, served me well, while you're trying to appeal to a customer that we had on earlier that said, "Man, the idea that Commvault is going to sass and having these rapid deployment cycles is what I love about the company." Brand new customer to Commvault, how do you balance those two, and is it an advantage or disadvantage? >> It's a great question, and it's tricky >> Keith: (laughing) >> is the right answer. But I think I've heard a lot of people, Keith, say as well, "Wow, in your space, "we don't necessarily want simple and limited. "It's got to be reliable, it's got to be consistent, "it's got to be," tada tada tada, all those same kind of things. Experienced people really like that level of experience. So, the real simple answer is, sorry for overusing simple, is that you got to do both. You got to try and simplify, and again that's why I distinguish between simple and simplified. So, put automation against them, make it simple, save some minutes and steps in those IT guys' day. And try to do both. We've actually used the tag line, I don't think I did today, on powerful simplicity. So you got to do both kind of idea, if that makes sense. >> Yeah taking automation and using these automation techniques to make what was a complex job simple, bottle that up, abstract it and allow customers to use services. So how are your >> Al: Yeah. >> traditional customers reacting to the new combo? >> I think very well. Gotten really a lot of great feedback, new products through the summertime, through even back to the springtime. I happen to believe enterprises are coming around more to the idea that you have to consolidate your platform. The platform idea, you guys, to automate. I'm running into customers 50% of their activity is tied to compliance. Well and that takes a ton of automation, and you don't want to be doing scripts and all that stuff everyday, cause it's repeatable. So again take those kind of ideas, simplify the environment, sorry the operations, and yet still keep a ton of capabilities and features. >> Yeah it's funny, if we dial the clock back two decades, things like intelligently managing our data and building in automation probably wouldn't have sounded that foreign. But >> I agree. >> today, it's a little bit different. We've talked about a decade ago, metadata was something I think most of us in the storage industry were like, this is critically important, but today it's actually happening. Why is today so important and is it? We would love to hear your6 viewpoint on that. >> Another great question. I don't know is the honest answer for sure, but I think it's all got to be driven with just the mountain of data, as you guys know, just tremendous data growth, I think point one. Point two is, I think a lot of organizations are seeing that it's required to run their business. I mean if you saw Steve Connell this morning, he talked about data is the new water. It's like that. So more and more people are coming to that conclusion. You know, I can't go into a business meeting and say, "Guys, I think we out to do this," and they go, "What do you base that on?" It's just an instinct. That doesn't play anymore. So, it's about the data. It's using the data. And that's been tricky in this space. I always said in the back up arena, people just backed it up because they were supposed to. It didn't even occur to them that they might need to use it. So it's like a big dumping ground, but, yep, check the box we backed it up. So all those sorts, velocity, its volume, those kind of things too, and Keith, I think is probably where it's going. >> Yeah, it's interesting. We've been hearing for a number of years now, data's going to drive everything. You must have data, you can't have opinions. But we're still early to see data-driven businesses. >> Al: Yeah, I agree. >> Do you have some kind of early exemplars, or what do you expect to see over the next couple of years that will drive things even more? >> Well we're focused right now on the operations side of it. So we're using tons of these techniques. I don't know if you saw my example today, but take a typical run, you have 48,000 events and logs. How the heck you going to do that without advanced analytics and machinery? And you saw my example, and this is all true stuff. It got it down to six issues that you needed to deal with. So, again we're focused on that side of the equation, but we have a ton of customers wanting to do, and you're hearing all the BI type-of-use cases out there, be it retail, be it security, be it the media industry. How do I capture and save and understand what bits of media clips I have. Today it's just in a big pile, right? So, want to be nicer with your user. >> So Al, you're entrepreneur, you're farm boy background. >> Good word. >> You're a COO of a company going through tremendous transformation. As you talk to your peers, whether it's peers within other technology companies, the farming community, et cetera, all these industries that are being disruptive, what advice have you given to them? Commvault GO, is a great example of Five years ago you guys didn't have a show. You're transforming the company. What advice have you given to your peers or even received that you'd like to share? >> I think it's you can't kick the can down the road, really. You got to deal with it. It's a tough question, Keith, but I think just deal with it and start investing. We go into so many places, and I'd have to be careful on how I say this but in a lot of companies the capabilities that they have within their companies of dealing with major architectural issues and data issues is: A, some of that talent has left, and B, they got other, more short term activities that are pressing 'em. So, guys, just back up, take a broad view, take a long view. Go get your foundations in place, and do this data thing right. I guarantee it's going to pay off for ya. Or you're going to be really disappointed if you don't. So just embrace it. >> All right, well Al, really appreciate catching up with you. I think, summarize what you were saying there, you can't just think about it, you need to go. >> (laughing) >> Stu: All right. >> Oh, you're tricky. >> For Keith Townsend, I'm Stu Miniman. Couple more left here at Commvault GO in Nashville, Tennesse. Thanks so much for watching theCube.

>> Announcer: Live from Nashville, Tennessee, it's theCUBE, covering Commvault GO 2018. Brought to you by Commvault. >> Welcome to the Music City. You're watching theCUBE, the worldwide leader in live tech coverage. This is Commvault GO. 20-year-old company, Commvault, the third year of their show, and the first time we have theCUBE here, and the first time we've been in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm Stu Miniman, your host for one day of coverage and joining me to help unlock the Commvault is the CTO advisor, Keith Townsend. >> Good to be back on theCUBE. >> Yeah, Keith, so you've actually been to this show before. It's my first time. I've known Commvault for a long time, but, you know, we talk about companies, they're all going through some kind of digital transformation and Commvault is no exception. I love the energy that I'm seeing at this show. They've got great puns around data. Data is at the center of everything, and really comes to what we see. You know, we know that data is so important. All the tropes out there. It's the new oil, it's the new currency, it is one of the most important things, not only in IT, but in business. So what's your experience been, so far? >> So far great. You know, they did a great job, second go for me. Last year, they had Captain Sully, great inspirational talk. This year they had a comedian, Connell on it, did a fabulous job of fast-paced multimedia sessions, talking about the connection of data, our everyday lives, lives as a technologist. Really high-powered show, a lot of great conversation around data and its applicability. >> Yeah, I did love that. Steve Connell, he is a poet, and some humor, and a lot of geeky things in there, talking about, right, how data fits into all of our lives, and what we do. And then that's one of the reason's why we're here, why the customers are here, and that's what it's about. You look at a company like Commvault. They've got 10s of thousands of customers, and as the big wave's coming in, what is Cloud Mead? I like some of the messages. I know we're going to dig in, both in our analysis, as well as with the guests, how cloud is impacting this, as well as things like the wave of AI. How is that changing the product? How can I access the information? I hear things like ransomware and GDPR, and hacking. It's a dangerous time in technology, whether you're talking social media, or talking in business. So give us a little bit of background, what you're hearing. Keith, you're talking to customers in your day job all the time. How important is data? And things like backup and data recovery, where do they fit in their world? >> Well, you know what? Customers are still learning this journey. I've talked to plenty of customers that have used Commvault, competing products, and a lot of, at the low level, a lot of these guys are still thinking about it as backup, but great, great testimony from one of the larger customers, out there, Merck, who talked about using backup or data protection, as part of their data management strategy, moving workloads from worker mobility, moving workloads from cloud to cloud, location to location. Every customer is dealing with multi-cloud challenges. Stu, we've talked about multi-cloud and the keys to multi-cloud data is absolutely the most important part of getting your multi-cloud strategy, or even cloud strategy, straight. So, I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation I've had out in the field, which is customers challenged with how do I simply identify a data management strategy? To hearing Commvault's message today and throughout the guests that we'll have on, customers, partners, the entire ecosystem, about how Commvault enables multi-cloud through data management. >> Yeah, I was curious what I would see coming in. Would this be, kind of, a hard core, let's get in to the product and understand things like backup and recovery. As you know, backup's important, but recovery is everything. We heard some of the customer stories about how fast they can recover. Those are great stories. How does cloud fit into it? You had the CEO and the COO on stage talking about do you go, when you go to the cloud, do you go simple or do you go smart? And there's some nuance there that you'll want to unpack as to understanding. You know, as we look at cloud, it's not just take the way we were doing things and throw them up there. I mean Keith, they talked about tape and virtual tape. You know, I remember back when, like, the VTLs were first being a thing, I was working at a storage company back then. You know, it was a huge move. Backup, those processes, are really hardened into an environment. What do the admins have to do? What do they have to change in the way they're doing things? Let's look at the news a little bit. So, you know, there was the, Commvault did a good job, I think, of checking all the check boxes. While there was nothing that jumped out at me as, like, wow this is the first time I've heard it, it's what I'm hearing from customers. So, moving to, and as a service portfolio, they've got a full line of appliances, but it's not only hardware. If you'd like to buy the software from them, of course you could do that. Got a number of big partners. We're going to HPE on the program. We're going to have Cisco on the program. NetUP is another big, big partner here. As well as, I think that the product that they're most excited to talk about is Commvault Activate, which is really looking a lot of the governance, which, when you talk in a cloud world, is one of the biggest challenges. By the way, if people in the background hear these cheering, the Commvault employees are really excited, everybody's starting to walk on the show floor. We're in the center of it all, Keith. So, we got a preview yesterday, they actually announced it to the tech field day crew, which you and I sat in with. So, give me your thoughts as to what you saw in the product line. How does that line up with what you're hearing from customers in a competitive nature? >> So, I think I tweeted out yesterday, doing the tech field day session, Commvault does not sleep at the wheel. As you said, Stu, there's nothing amazingly new about what they announced, but a 20-year-old technology company is definitely keeping pace with the innovation that we've seen in the field. Customers want options when it comes to consuming backup and recovery. From a storage layer, they want the storage bricks, they want a hardware solution, they want to consume it via subscription, or perpetual license. They want this cloud-type capability. More importantly, they want, and they talked about it on stage today, this analytics capability. The ability to extract intelligence out of your data. Commvault calls is 4-D indexing. Other vendors just call it, simply, meta-data. But taking advantage of 15, 20 year-old data, to drive innovation in today's society, while keeping compliant with GDPR and other regulations that are coming up, sprouting up as it seems, every other week. >> I did like that terminology that you used. The 4-D innovation, because of course the fourth dimension is time and we're using intelligence. The challenge we have, as we know, is we have so much data and what do we the analytics for? They said we can use the analytics, first of all, compliance. I need to understand that I take care of that. Secondly, what if I want to cull data? What data don't I need anymore? What can I get rid of? There's huge cost savings that I can have there. And lastly, what can I get from analytics? How can I get value out of that information? And more. So, the use of analytics is something I was looking for, obviously want to talk to some of the product people, some of the customers, about what I've heard so far and talking to people. People were excited. I was actually talking to one of the partners of Commvault, they said one of the reasons they partnered deeper and are looking to work with Commvault, is they've got good tech. There's a reason they've been around for 20 years. They're a publicly traded stock. They've been doing well. They have been growing. Revenue wise, I looked, the last three years, I think they're at 700 million, they've been growing in the kind of eight to 9% year over year for the last couple years. Which, as a software company, it's not taking the world by storm, but for, in the infrastructure space, that is good growth. I do have to mention, there was some activist investor activity that came on. We actually we're going to have the CMO, we're going to have the COO on the program. We won't have the CEO, they are in the midst of going through a change there. And, you know, look, say what you will about activist investors. The reason they're getting involved is because they believe that there is more value that can be unlocked in Commvault with some changes and with product line and the things happening that's what we're starting to see here. That's why were excited to dig in and kind of understand. >> Yeah, we can see that even in some of the tech customer's testimonials. The state of Colorado net new customer. This is amazing in an area that we've seen 90 million, 250 million, easily a half a million dollars of investment in the data protection space. Commvault, 20-year-old company, still gaining traction with net new use cases and if I was an activist investor, I'd look at that. I'd look at the overall industry and thinking what can we do to unlock some of the potential of a fairly large customer base? Pretty stable company, but a very, very exciting part of the industry. >> Yeah, and Keith, you brought up meta-data. Meta-data's something that, you know, in the industry we've been talking about for a long time. It's really that intelligence that's going to allow the systems to gather everything. I know, when I get my brand new phone now, I can search my 4,000 photos by location, by date, everything like that. It's auto-recognizing information. The same thing we're getting on the business side. It used be oh okay, let's make sure when you put your photo, your file, in there that you tag it. Come on. Nobody can do this. Nobody's thinking when I'm doing my job, well I really need to think about the meta data 'cause five years from now, I might want to do it. Oh, I can search by person or project or things like that. But it's the intelligence in the system to be able to learn and grow and the more data we have, actually the more that the intelligence can get there. >> And that's critically important for even compliance. Again, culling data. You know, Bill Nye got up on stage and talked about being able to use data, or I'm sorry, AstraZeneca got up on stage and talked about using data that was 15-years-old to rerun through today's algorithms and trials. If you were to cull the wrong data, then they could not have the innovation that they've created by having 15-year-old data. So, the meta data, the ability to go back again, search your repository for key words, content, surface up that data and leverage that data. This is why we say data is the new currency, it's the new oil, it's the most critical. I even heard on stage today, data's the new water. I don't know if I'd go quite that far, you know I like my old-fashioned glass of water, but this is why we hear these terms because companies are reinventing themselves with the data. >> Alright, so Keith, what Dave Allante would point out is water is a limited resource. Data, we can reuse it. We can take a drink of data, we can share it. Data helps complete us. It's the shirts that they have at the show. We've got AstraZeneca, we've got the state of Colorado, we've got other users. The key partners, key executives. We're going to bring you the key data to help you extract the signal from the noise here at Commvault GO. For Keith Townsend, I'm Stu Miniman. Thanks for joining theCUBE. (upbeat music)